The Landlord's Legacy
by 123serendipitee
Summary: The almost-menage with Remy haunts Nick's dreams...until he is given something much more interesting to think about.
1. Chapter 1

"This is happening, Nick...this is happening..."

The words would float like an echoey promise through his dreams, although the red lips that pouted temptingly in the white face before him never moved, and those unflinching blue eyes just gazed up into his, their depths unfathomable.

And he would lean in, to see if he could make those eyes shut, and that mouth open. But just about the time it would start to feel like it was all going to go someplace really good, it would all start to go someplace really bad.

Because he would start to feel Remy's hands massaging his neck...Remy's hot boozy breath brushing past his ear...and pressing against his back, Remy's...

"JESS!"

He would always wake up shouting (or mumbling, or whining, or cursing) her name. It depended on the particular dream whether he was begging, calling, or damning her.

Tonight there could have been an 11th commandment added to prohibit the foul intent with which he uttered her name.

A threesome with their slightly gross and frankly terrifying landlord? even though it had just been a giant NEVER TO BE REPEATED game of chicken, with one of them destined to be the one to swerve before disaster struck, he knew it would never stop haunting his dreams.

It had to be the craziest thing he'd ever done sober. And hopefully non-sober as well, although it must be confessed that often he was a blackout-style drunk who didn't remember much the next day, so who knew.

But GAWD, if he'd ever done anything worse than that he_ prayed _he'd never remember.

The only consolation he had to cling to was that in the end he'd won the fight and proven Jess wrong. And that comforting thought enabled him, as he climbed out of bed, to finally shrug off the lingering dream-sensation of Remy's sweaty palms on his back.


	2. Chapter 2

"Nick, have you been wearing my driving mocassins?!"

Nick didn't even look up from adjusting his fantasy football lineup. "Schmidt, if you think about that for_ just _a minute, I think you'll realize why that question is completely, inherently flawed."

"What are you saying, Nick? Are you saying you are TOO MUCH OF A MAN to wear my shoes?!"

"No Schmidt...no...I'm not too much of a man to wear your SHOES. I _am _too much of a man to wear your _purple slippers_."

"OK, yeah, haha, ok, ONE: I'll have you know they are the hottest thing for men in Europe right now. Well, right after cobalt blue cashmere scarves, contrasting print pocket squares, and fresh flowers in one's lapel. And LETTER B: _someone _in this apartment has stretched them out, and while Winston's feet are girlishly thin..."

(Winston proudly held one up up to illustrate the point)

"...YOU, Nick Miller, have been known to retain water-weight in your pudgy little piggies."

Schmidt ended his rant with a flourish of the shoes in question, as if their very distorted form would seal his argument.

But Nick had yet to look up from his laptop. "And again I say," he replied calmly, "I don't wear girl shoes. I have no desire to wear girl shoes. I pretty much go _out of my way _not to wear girl shoes."

"I don't know Nick," Winston drawled, in that sly way he sometimes had of being a complete instigator, "Who knows what conflicted desires and appetites may be hiding under all that plaid and flannel. After all, of the three of us in this room, you _are _the only one of us who's slept with the landlord."

Nick finally, sharply, looked up. "Okay, ONE, there was no 'sleeping' involved, either literal or euphemistic. And LETTER B," he pointed his recognition towards Schmidt, who accepted the props with a bro-nod and chest thump, "If you really want to run with that argument, the same logic would indicate that of the three of us in this room, I'm also the only one of us who Jess has tried to have sex with."

He delivered that tongue-in-cheek claim with triumphant braggadocio, and later he would reflect that it really would have been a rather masterful turning of the tables on his evil roommates...IF Jess hadn't walked in just in time to hear the last part of his sentence.

"NICK!" He whirled around at the sound of her horrified gasp, and immediately had to reel backwards. She was standing mere inches from him, and her finger was already in his face.

Except it wasn't so much a finger, as it was a pirate's hook.

Which, all things considered in the world of Jess, wasn't even that note-worthy. He was much more alarmed by the real hurt that he saw blinking behind her irate lashes.

"Jess...no, you only heard...come on, JESS!" But she and her multiple paper bags full of...teacher-y stuff...had already stomped off.

The room was left ringing with silence, and when Nick turned back to his male roommates, they had the grace to wince sheepishly on his behalf.

But that didn't stop him from giving them the double finger-jab of accusation, and a "look what you've done now!" face, before sighing, and heading off to do some damage control.


	3. Chapter 3

He knocked twice, softly, before barely cracking open her door. "Jess?"

There was no reply, and he peeked in to see her laying on her bed, cradling a plush parrot like it was a teddy bear.

"Hey Jess, listen, it totally wasn't like that. The boys were just joking around about the thing with Remy. I mean, first Schmidt was accusing me of wearing purple shoes, and then Winston was all, 'Well, he does sleep with dudes', and then..."

Wait, how the hell HAD that whole conversation come about?! Suddenly it didn't seem to make much sense even to him. But it didn't matter, because Jess was taking a deep breath and limply waving him silent.

"Don't worry about it Nick. I just had a really bad day, and it hit me wrong. That's all."

Sometimes her mercurial mood swings could be the most annoying thing in the world. But sometimes they soothed like a balm.

He lightly lowered himself down next to her, and asked softly, "Why have you had a bad day?"

She took another deep breath, and let it out in a resigned sigh. "I ran into some old friends today. You know...the kind of friends you have when you're a couple and you think that they really like you but then when you're not a couple anymore you suddenly never hear from them again and you realize they never were your friends at all really?"

Nick did know, and his lips thinned in sympathy. Meanwhile, Winston and Schmidt had crept in at some point during that run-on sentence, and the four of them were now lounging in, on, and around her bed, like a pile of puppies.

"So. Anyway. I just ran into them randomly today, and we were making polite conversation, and then suddenly they started laughing about the day that Spencer and I broke up. I guess...apparently...Spencer TELLS people about it. About me being...you know...in the middle of the world's most awkward striptease, and then..." She trailed off, and weakly flopped a hand against the red and yellow parrot. "He's been laughing about it. Like it's just a joke to him. The horriblest most humiliating moment of my life to date is just a joke to him..."

Her eyes were brimming with tears, and a searing anger suddenly swelled up in Nick, in a protective surge. "He still live at the same place, Jess? **God help him** if he still lives at the same place, because I'm going over there and..."

But Schmidt held up a placating hand and interrupted his temper fit to more calmly and practically point out, "Look, okay, Jess, because it can't be said enough: **Spencer is an idiot**."

And Winston chimed in with, "And if that's the kind of friends they were, you don't need them anyway."

"Oh, I know guys, " she said, blinking the tears back into submission. "That's not it, at all. Really. I'm over Spencer, and I'm over that whole period in my life." She paused for a few seconds, while Nick found that breathing deeply through his nose helped that hot swell of anger in his chest start to subside a bit, even though his nostrils flared with the effort. And then Jess continued thoughtfully, "It's just that...I'm just tired of making a fool out of myself, you know? Of just being a joke to everyone." She rolled her eyes at herself as she exampled ruefully, "I'm tired of being the girl who 'rescues' a cat from her neighbors, takes it to the vet because she thinks it's dying of mange, and finds out it's an expensive hairless breed. Of being the girl who couldn't remember the name of a sitting vice-president of the United States of America until she was 25 years old. The girl who gives her boyfriend a _stuffed toy_ for Christmas, right after he gives her a trip to freaking Vienna." She stopped and sighed sadly, "And I know I made a huge idiot out of myself with that whole thing with Remy, too. How can I keep being so stupid all the time?!"

"Jess," Nick found himself, suddenly, fiercely, wanting to take back everything he'd previously said on the subject, in attempt to comfort her, "Just because it's not always.._.realistic_...to believe that everyone around you is good...it doesn't mean that that trait makes you look stupid. It just makes you...better than the rest of us."

"Yeah," Winston backed him up, and the very real admiration he often seemed to have for Jess rang true in his voice, "Seriously, you have the best heart of anyone I know, Jess." He smiled at her fondly. "Sometimes a little misguided...sometimes a little loud in the morning...but you're always the best person in any room you're in."

Jess smiled back at him, blinking away happy tears now, and Nick felt the little twinge of what he always refused to admit was jealousy that he felt every time he witnessed one of those quiet little moments of connection between those two. "Isn't that exactly what I just said?" he mumbled grumpily.

But Schmidt was now offering with an intense sincerity, "Besides Jess, in that deal with Remy, YOU were not the one who came out looking like fool!"

She raised a questioning eyebrow, and Schmidt continued earnestly, "Yeah, everyone knows the pathetic loser in that situation was _Nick_."

Her irresistible burst of laughter was such a welcome sound that Nick gladly rode the wave of the suddenly lighter mood, "HEY, if you'll all remember,_ I_ was the one ultimately proven right that night!"

"But Nick," Winston pointed out impishly, "She wouldn't have given up if you hadn't tried to kiss her!"

Jess just grinned, as Schmidt continued with mock-seriousness, "The girl was totally ready to go through with sex with_ Remy_, but the very prospect of kissing _you _made her fold like a house of cards."

"Okay, haha, I get it. This is something you guys think is funny. This is something you discuss behind my back. Ok. Nice." Nick was doing his best to act mad, but the sound of Jess's helpless giggling made him have to hide a smile as headed towards her door.

Schmidt and Winston kept the schtick coming as they trailed after him, "Aw Nick...don't feel so bad...you might have struck out with the girl, but word on the street is that Remy's door is open for you any time..."

"I heard he carved your initials onto his broom handle..."

"I heard it was the soft white flesh of his belly, but potato/po-TAH-to..."

"Guys?!" Jess's voice interrupted their banter, and although laughter still glimmered at the corners of her lips, her eyes were also glistening with happy tears. "Seeing those people today really made me realize how lucky I am now. I mean...maybe I didn't even know what friends were before. Because other than Cece, I've never had friends like you guys before...you know...REAL friends..."

She was stumbling with uncharacteristic verbal ineptness, and there seemed to be more that she wanted to say, but her watery smile wouldn't allow it. But it didn't matter, because they were all ducking their heads, mumbling incoherently, and shuffling out her door, anyway.

And as they each headed down the hall, in their different directions, only Schmidt's, "But don't think we won't be revisiting the Mystery of the Mutilated Moccasins!" broke the silence of their individual secret smiles.


	4. Chapter 4

So, that was that.

Except that...it wasn't.

Because maybe_ Jess _felt better now, but _Nick _was left with a discontent that niggled at him for days, until he was finally forced to face it:

The guys were right. And although they'd been joking, they'd put into words something that had been vaguely eating away at the edges of his ego ever since That Night With Remy.

And he finally got up the nerve to ask Jess about it.

When he knocked on her door, he received a strangled response that sounded like she'd either come down with lockjaw, or was possibly in need of the Heimlich maneuver. Either way, he thought he should just go on in.

The loud THUNK on the other side of the door just confirmed it.

"Good grief Jess...what the...?!"

She was sprawled ungracefully on the floor, a hat with a giant plume covering half her face, and what appeared to be a peg leg jutting out from her actual appendage at a bizarre right angle.

"Pirate Week at school," she informed him happily, flinging the hat towards her bed while he helped her up.

"Yeah," he grunted, sitting on the edge of her bed and helping her unbuckle the peg leg, "When this went on for more than a day or two, I figured it was an actual event of some kind, and not just a passing mood."

Because one never knew, with Jess.

As if she could read his thoughts, she gave him one of her sassy "happy to be me" smirks as she leaned contentedly back against her pillows and asked, "What's up, Nicholas?!"

Nick was beginning to suspect that maybe this wasn't the best time to broach this subject after all, but fearing that if he didn't do it now he'd never find the nerve again, he forged ahead.

"Jess...can I ask you something?"

"AYE, lad! Do you wish a reprieve from yer plank walking?! Seein' as how ye just saved me life in an heroic act of bravery, REPRIEVE GRANTED. I see that yer now a man, and I name you my first mate..."

"No, seriously, can we talk?!"

"Aye, what arrrrrre ye waitin' on?!"

"LIKE REAL PEOPLE, Jess!"

"Sure Nick, what's up?" She dropped the pirate accent with happy fluidity.

"I just...there's something that's been...WITHOUT THE EYE PATCH, please?!"

She moved it to her nose.

"Jess..."

She moved it to her mouth.

"JESS!"

"Speak no evil," she mumbled.

"OKAY, that's it...another time maybe..."

He threw up his hands and started to get up, but she grabbed his arm and pulled him back down.

"No Nick, I'm sorry, I'm just a little over-excited about...you know..."

"Pirate Week," they both said in unison, smiling at each other.

"Is something bothering you?" If she wasn't being a real person at the moment, this was a pretty good imitation, so he took a deep breath and dove in.

"Well, I've been thinking about the Remy thing..."

"PLEASE don't tell me you want to have him over again!" They shared another understanding smile, and he continued warily, "Soooo Jess...why _did _you stop things with him when you did?"

This time she looked trepidatious when she asked, "Oh God, DO you want to have him over again?!"

He waved a dismissive hand at the ludicrousness of the very suggestion, and continued to try to figure out how to word the issue that was concerning him without completely losing _all _dignity. But increasingly that was seeming like it was going to be an impossibility.

"The thing is...you seemed totally determined to go through with it..."

"Oh Nick! You know neither one of us were ever going to go through with it! It was just a matter of who waved the white flag first!"

"Yeah, but sometimes...and don't take this the wrong way...but sometimes I think that if Remy had been the first one to try to kiss you, you wouldn't have stopped him." So, he'd said it. And he almost held his breath while waiting for her reaction.

She made a disgusted face, but took the implied question seriously, with a thoughtful cock of her head. "Wellll...now that you mention it..." she answered slowly, "You're probably right. I probably _wouldn't _have stopped him."

He didn't know what he was wanting to hear, he just knew that THAT was definitely not it. And even though she'd made another grossed-out face with the admission, it didn't keep him from flopping back across the foot of her bed with a decidedly UNdignified, "Oh GAWD, Jess!"

She sat up and leaned forward over crossed legs, with a look of fascination, "Yes...I see why this has been on your mind, Nick! It makes a really interesting point!"

"INTERESTING is not exactly the way I would phrase it, Jess! Look, I know I'm completely emasculating myself by continuing to pursue this, but let me just get this straight. Just so that when I'm laying in bed feeling suicidal tonight, I have a clear understanding of why. SO: you couldn't stand the thought of kissing ME...you LAUGHED when you saw my penis..." his eyes widened as a horrible new thought occurred to him, and he interrupted his own train of thought, "WAIT! would you have laughed at_ Remy's_ penis?!"

She gave a horrified grimace, "GAWD, Nick, NO!"

He covered his face with his hands. "Shoot me now...just...shoot me now..."

"What's wrong?!" Jess honestly looked confused, and Nick thought for maybe the millionth time that perhaps, just perhaps, growing and carrying around all that hair took so much energy and effort that it sucked the power straight away from her brain, sometimes.

"Again...and to my utter humiliation...I reiterate: You would rather have kissed Remy, than have kissed me."

"Yes!" She answered with a head-bob of assurity.

"And you're asking me WHAT'S WRONG?! Wouldn't kissing Remy have been a little...gross?!"

"Oh, the GROSSEST!"

"But kissing me would have been MORE gross?!"

"Wait...what?! NO! I never said that!"

"When I started to kiss you," he belabored the point relentlessly, "you freaked out. But you said that if Remy had started to kiss you, you would have gone through with it."

"Well, I'm not proud to admit it, but yeah, I probably would have been just that stubborn."

He squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Never mind, hand me a gun and I'll shoot myself."

She leaned forward over him until her hair fell in his face, and he had to spit it out and bat it away."

"Don't you see, Nick?! It's totally clear to ME...what are you not getting?!"

"It's totally clear to me that I'm a less appealing prospect than REMY THE LANDLORD, and if you can direct me towards the planet you're from where that's _not _a reason to stop wanting to live, I'll be moving there now. Thanks."

"Nick!" she swatted at him in aggravation. "You keep saying that. I never said that."

"Said...what?!"

"That...that you're less attractive than Remy," she said with a sheepish eye-roll.

He, however, was just depressed and exhausted by the whole thing. "Jess, I'm just going to lay here and stop trying to figure you out. Don't bother bringing me food or water...death will be a kind mistress."

She rolled her eyes in exasperation this time, and shook him in frustration. "Okay then, let me spell it out for you: Kissing Remy would have been completely disgusting and meaningless."

She paused to allow him to respond, but determinedly he did not. So she continued, "But kissing you...kissing you..." she paused, and he couldn't help opening one eye to look at her. She was blushing as mumbled, "Wouldn't have been."

A hopeful light began dawning in the back of Nick's mind. "Wouldn't have been...?"

"Wouldn't have been...you know..._been_." She gestured with frustrated embarrassment. "GAAAH! You know! Gross. Or disgusting. Or..." she looked down, suddenly preoccupied with pestering a hangnail, as she finished softly, "...meaningless."

He half sat up, feeling like maybe he might have the will to live, after all.

"So...and it might take me awhile to sort all this out still, but...that's why you would rather have kissed Remy than _me_? Because with me..._you might have actually liked it?!"_

"I'm pretty sure I would have," she half-sang through her teeth, looking everywhere in the room except at him.

"And that would have been...a_ bad _thing?!"

"Well, on that particular night and under those particular circumstances...yes. I mean...can you imagine?! In front of Remy, and...UGH!" She shook with revulsion. "And besides," she added a little more quietly, "You're with Julia right now. Right?"

He paused. "Right." He had to pause first, because it took him a second to remember who Julia was, and if they were still together or not. It was kinda hard to remember much at all, when his brain was currently buzzing with the heady new knowledge that Jess might have LIKED to have kissed him, on a different night, and under different circumstances.

"Soooo..." she said, to fill the awkward silence.

"Soooo..." he agreed, without really knowing what he was agreeing with.

"Is that what you wanted to know?"

Actually, yes, yes it was. It was more than he'd even_ known _he wanted to know...more than he would have ever dared_ hope _to know...but now that he knew it, he knew that it was exactly what he would have wanted to know, if he'd only known.

And now he did.

And suddenly he felt something unfamiliar bubbling up inside him...a happy euphoria that he couldn't have named, if he'd tried...but he felt care-free and giddy enough to suddenly tease her, "But just to verify one final thing...if you'd seen Remy's penis..."

"EEEEW, Nick, just STOP!"

"It would have been gross, right?!"

"YES!"

He stood up and gave her a mischievously suggestive look, "Aaaand..._my _penis?!"

"GET OUT!" she yelled, laughing, and the pillow she threw at his head made a soft thud as it hit the door he'd quickly pulled shut behind him.

And as he readied himself for bed, his mind was fairly effervescent with the potential of a whole wondrous new set of imaginations to explore. Optional ways that that night _might_ have gone. If Julia hadn't been in the picture. If Remy had been conveniently called away to do some emergency landlording. If Jess _hadn't _pulled away when he leaned in with her name on his lips.

Because kissing Jess would definitely not have been gross or disgusting. In fact, truth be told, it would have "meant something" to him. And for once, he wasn't too scared to acknowledge that to himself...because she'd admitted that it would have meant something to her, too.

And Jess's earnest white face floating before him again as he drifted off to sleep definitely made mentally revisiting that night worth risking Remy's return to his dreams.

But this time, he never showed up.


End file.
